April 10, 1992 | In this fatalistic, often darkly sadistic novels of low-rent crimes and high-octane passions, author Jim Thompson (1906-1977) rattled around inside the skulls of drifters, psychos and three-time losers. His vivid prose indicates an author who was not merely hard-boiled, like a David Goodis or even a James M. Cain, but marinated in his own bile.
And his rude, harshly cynical humor suggests that Thompson, more than anyone else, would relish the rich irony that, nearly 15 years after his death, he remains a hot property among contemporary moviemakers.
Directors as diverse as Sam Peckinpah (The Getaway), Bertrand Tavernier (Coup de Torchon, based on Thompson’s Pop. 1,280) and Stanley Kubrick (The Killing, taken from a script co-written by Thompson) have long been drawn to Thompson’s savage universe. But in the past two years, the late author has enjoyed a genuine renaissance, with no less than three Thompson novels — The Kill-Off, The Grifters and After Dark, My Sweet — brought to the screen.
The Kill-Off, which has its Houston premiere Saturday and Sunday at the Rice University Media Center, is a spectacularly seedy tale of passion, perversity and power plays in a crumbling coastal resort. Luane (Loretta Gross), a bedridden harpy who knows where all the skeletons are closeted, takes fiendish delight in spreading malicious gossip and taunting threats by using her telephone as an offensive weapon. Eventually, someone has more than enough of Luane’s wicked ways, and kills her. And for a long time, the killer feels safe, figuring that, since so many people have so many motives, no one will ever be able to discover just who did it.
In this sort of parched landscape, only bad things can take root. This, truly, is Jim Thompson country.
So what’s a nice girl like Maggie Greenwald doing in a place like that?
Laughing good-naturedly at the half-joking, blatantly sexist query, Greenwald replied: “Well, that’s not the first time I’ve been asked that question.”
Greenwald, a native New Yorker and former film editor, directed The Kill-Off as a small-budget independent production three years ago. Since then, the film, only her second as a feature filmmaker, has appeared at several prestigious international film festivals, and played in a handful of commercial engagements. She will introduce The Kill-Off Saturday at the Rice Media Center, and will answer questions after the 7:30 p.m. screening.
And, yes, she says she is more than willing to explain just what she’s doing in Thompson country.
“My perspective is, a world of darkness and despair is supposed to be the exclusive domain of males,” Greenwald said in a telephone interview. “And it’s not, not any more than any other realm of human existence is. My perspective as a woman, as an artist, is primarily that a woman’s perspective on life has so far been unexpressed in popular culture. And this whole idea that women aren’t concerned about violence, or don’t have a dark side, is, to me, naive.”
Indeed, Greenwald argues that women may be particularly attuned to Thompson’s vision of life.
“Jim Thompson’s books tend to be very internal,” Greenwald said. “And even though they’re very dark, and his characters are all killers and thieves and whores and crooks, he writes from a very internal perspective. And I think what’s unique about his work, and what’s wonderful about it, is he sees a world from the killer’s or the thief’s point of view. And from the point of view of their vulnerability. To me, that is a more feminine perspective than just an action-filled, hard-boiled book would have.
“As far as The Kill-Off goes, I definitely was drawn to it by my fascination with this very conventional — seemingly conventional — old lady at the center of it. Who, through Thompson’s incredible mind, becomes quite an extraordinary old lady. Who uses this very typical thing like talking on the phone and gossiping to realize an incredible will and lust for power, to control the whole town.”
Which isn’t very nice at all.
